Idle Gossip

by Renee Patrick

Overview

1940, Los Angeles. Hollywood's famous gossip columnist, Lorna Whitcomb, has summoned sleuthing duo Lillian Frost and Edith Head to her office. Tipster Glenn Hoyle has been murdered and Lorna's 'leg man' Sam Simcoe is the LAPD's only suspect. Sam is sure Glenn had uncovered an explosive story. Was it just idle gossip, or could it explain his murder?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780727850492
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	05/03/2022
Series:	A Lillian Frost and Edith Head Mystery , #5
Edition description:	Main ed.
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Renee Patrick is the pseudonym for married authors Rosemarie and Vince Keenan. Rosemarie is a research administrator and a poet. Vince is a screenwriter and a journalist. Both native New Yorkers, they currently live in Seattle, Washington.

Editorial Reviews

03/14/2022

Patrick’s solid fifth Hollywood mystery (after 2021’s The Sharpest Needle) finds Lillian Frost, social secretary to wealthy movie maven Addison Rice, and Edith Head, Oscar-winning costume designer for Paramount Pictures, drawn into the cutthroat world of gossip columnists. In 1940, Lorna Whitcomb, a top chronicler of Hollywood happenings, asks Lillian and Edith to help clear Sam Simcoe, her main source of salacious material for her column. Sam is suspect number one in the murder of tipster Glenn Hoyle, who occasionally passed Sam juicy tidbits. The only clue as to who might have had a motive to kill Glenn is a list of three names found at the crime scene, those of “a starlet on the rise, a producer with a paucity of credits, and a director the world had forgotten.” Star turns by the likes of Barbara Stanwyck, Bing Crosby, and Count Oleg Cassini, who may be in line for Edith’s job, help compensate for a plot that’s less gripping than Patrick’s usual. A bonus is the concluding author’s note that reveals the actual (and often outlandish) events that inspired elements in the story. Hollywood history buffs will have fun. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, DeFiore and Co. (May)

Publishers Weekly

'Hollywood history buffs will have fun’  – Publishers Weekly

'The authors . . . do a fine job of capturing the spirit of 1940s Hollywood and its gossip-driven subculture’  – Booklist

‘Entertaining . . . Patrick elegantly weaves Hollywood gossip and history into the well-crafted plot. This is a tailor-made treat for film buffs'  – Publishers Weekly on The Sharpest Needle

From the Publisher

2022-01-26
Summer 1940 finds costume designer Edith Head and her pal Lillian Frost doing some snooping that’s beneath even gossip columnist Lorna Whitcomb.

“Eyes on Hollywood,” Lorna’s column, relies on material gathered by her legman, Sam Simcoe, and Sam relies on information dispensed by tipsters like Glenn Hoyle. When Glenn is beaten to death and Sam, who’s lurking conveniently nearby, is arrested for his murder, Lorna, fearing that her well may go dry, asks Edith and Lillian, who’ve acquired a certain reputation as investigators, to nose around in her place and find enough evidence to pin the tail on some different donkey. The two friends aren’t exactly hurting for activities. Edith has just been promoted to head of Paramount’s wardrobe department, and Lillian’s work as social secretary for wealthy, star-struck retired industrialist Addison Rice fills her days with resplendently obnoxious characters like Englishman Freddy Sewell, who was formerly employed (can you believe it?) by producer/director Alexander Korda. Even so, they agree to track down information about three people Hoyle evidently dug up dirt on: silent film director Vernon Reynolds, who’s now the maître d’ at Arturo’s; Mephistophelian wannabe producer Earl Lymangood; and Delia Carson, America’s sweetheart, who’s outraged her stage mother, Rhoda, by up and marrying bit player Arthur Davis. The pair manage to unearth the three targets’ not very interesting secrets with insulting ease, but learning what Hoyle knew doesn’t get them any closer to telling them who killed him. Nor does it prevent a second murder. Luckily, walk-ons by the likes of Orson Welles, Preston Sturges, and Barbara Stanwyck keep things lively.

The mystery is no more than serviceable, but the chatter, much of it based on fact, makes this rehash of the past shine.

Kirkus Reviews

The story, concerning a bank robbery, is genuinely gripping. Well done

Booklist on Script for Scandal

A solid mystery, but it's the imaginative blending of real and fictional history that really sells the book . . . The emergence of Head as a fully fleshed character, along with evermore-engaging, Hollywood-based stories, has made [this series] something quite special

Booklist on The Sharpest Needle